Monday, May 4, 2009

Here's one of my favorite vendors, Tools4Revit. I'm lucky to be the US distributor for them and they have some truly amazing products. Today, I'm just going to focus on their Truss+ Revit plugin.

Essentially, you just make your roof in Revit, click on the Truss+ add in link on the toolbar and it will design a complete truss system for you. This is different than Revit Structure which will create a truss, but not create the truss system. Their other products include Sort & Mark, Rafter + Finished Floor tools (links at the bottom of this post.)

As a reference and a thank you and what I find incredibly ironic, the first company to purchase Truss + in the United States is SCA Consulting Engineers, who were also the first company to purchase and implement Revit Structure. So, thanks to Gregg Kite, Director of Production for his continued drive to always have the cutting edge technology to stay ahead of his competition. If you use Revit Structure, you'll notice that their projects are the ones on the cover of the Autodesk boxes.

Below is everything you need to know about Truss + for pricing, downloading, getting the trial activation code and video tutorials. You can even ask your reseller to contact me to resell the product in your city or state.

Features

Truss+ application for Revit® Architecture and Revit® Structure provides set of tools for roof wood framing.

How to do input and modify of roof framing parameters easy?

Special 3D Truss System Grid was created for it. This tool helps to work and frame roof hips, gables, barn ends, “L” returns and valley sets very easy.

You just have to select the roof and its boundary lines to define which end of the roof you want to frame at this moment. Choose framing type (Step Down, Terminal, Midwest, California, etc.), modify truss distribution parameters (if it’s needed) and then you will get 3D Truss System Grid in the correct place. You can check and modify 3D Grid basic parameters incl. Jack distribution configuration.

Truss Database Manager helps to edit or create new types of parametrical wood trusses “4t4r” quickly with one click for all categories: common (incl. “Room in Roof”), gable, hip, valley... Configurator of Truss Design Settings includes Jack Expert and other functions for designate right type of truss at the right place. As well, you can configure type-span-panel related parameters for common, truncated, gable, attic, mono pitch, valley, girder of hips and jack trusses.

Tens of trusses will be automatically generated by 3D Truss Generator in several minutes (one truss per 2-3 sec.). There are included functions for truss type modifying, truss auto-copying and truss ends cutting.

Flexible scheduling technology is introduced in Truss+ software. It allows quickly define how mark and sort different roof framing members and elements like truss webs and chords. Sort function groups, sorts and numbers framing members and elements according predefined solutions. Main types of schedules as examples are included with software installation.